{"id":54674,"date":"2023-04-21T00:00:10","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T00:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=54674"},"modified":"2023-04-21T00:00:30","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T00:00:30","slug":"gun-violence-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=54674","title":{"rendered":"Horrifying sign of the times"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>There can be no mistaking what is happening in school districts across Texas.<\/p>\n<p>The Texas Senate has approved a bill that requires school districts to implement &#8220;active shooter&#8221; policies, or else face being taken over by the state education agency.<\/p>\n<p>The legislation is in response to the Uvalde school massacre a year ago in which students and educators were gunned down by a madman.<\/p>\n<p>This is a shocking and horrifying sign of the times in Texas &#8230; and everywhere else that has become victimized by the spasm of gun violence.<\/p>\n<p>The Texas Tribune reports: <em><a href=\"https:\/\/capitol.texas.gov\/tlodocs\/88R\/billtext\/pdf\/SB00011I.pdf#navpanes=0\">Senate Bill 11<\/a>, filed by Sen.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/directory\/robert-nichols\/\">Robert Nichols<\/a>, R-Jacksonville, would create a safety and security department within the Texas Education Agency and give it the authority to compel school districts to establish active-shooter protocols. Those that fail to meet the agency\u2019s standards could be put under the state\u2019s supervision.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2023\/04\/19\/texas-senate-school-safety-active-shooter\/\">Texas Senate passes bill to strengthen school active-shooter plans | The Texas Tribune<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I happen to believe this is a reasonable approach to helping reduce the casualties inflicted by shooters. I didn&#8217;t think it would be possible to support such a move, but given the alternatives, it makes sense.<\/p>\n<p>One of the alternatives is to arm teachers, give them the authority and ability to open fire on shooters. Bad idea! I continue to oppose the notion of asking teachers &#8212; individuals whose calling is to &#8220;educate&#8221; children &#8212; to take up arms and start firing weapons at individuals &#8230; hoping they don&#8217;t hit innocent victims in the melee.<\/p>\n<p>With so many incidents erupting around the country, I welcome the Texas effort to force public school systems to enact policies aimed at dealing with this existential threat to the safety of our children and educators.<\/p>\n<p>I suppose you can call this the 21st-century version of the &#8220;duck and cover&#8221; drills many of us once did while the nation was frightened about a possible nuclear attack.<\/p>\n<p>This threat, though, is frighteningly real.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><a href=\"mailto:johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com\">johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There can be no mistaking what is happening in school districts across Texas. The Texas Senate has approved a bill that requires school districts to implement &#8220;active shooter&#8221; policies, or else face being taken over by the state education agency. The legislation is in response to the Uvalde school massacre a year ago in which &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=54674\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Horrifying sign of the times<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6251],"tags":[7594,2037,6616,4653,4728],"class_list":["post-54674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-news","tag-active-shooters","tag-gun-violence","tag-tea","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54674"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54677,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54674\/revisions\/54677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}